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Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (December 4, 1795 - February 5, 1881) was a Scottish poet, essayist, satirist, and historian, whose writings were highly influential during the Victorian era. Life Overview Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire. His father, James Carlyle, was a stonemason, a man of intellect and strong character, and his mother was, as he said, "of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just, and the wise." His earliest education was received at the parish school of Ecclefechan. He then went to the Grammar School of Annan, and in 1809 to the Univerity of Edinburgh, the 90 miles to which he travelled on foot. After completing his "Arts" course, he went on to divinity with the view of entering the Church, but about the middle of his course found that he could not proceed. He became a schoolmaster first at Annan and then at Kirkcaldy. Returning in 1819 to Edinburgh he for a time studied law and took pupils; but his health was bad, he suffered from insomnia and dyspepsia, and he tired of law. For the next 2 years, 1822-1824, he acted as tutor. On the termination of this engagement he decided upon a literary career, which he began by contributing articles to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. In 1824 he translated Legendre's Geometry (to which he prefixed an essay on "Proportion)," and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister; he also wrote for the London Magazine a "Life of Schiller." About this time he visited Paris and London, where he met Hazlitt, Campbell, Coleridge, and others. In the following year (1826) he married Jane Baillie Welsh, and settled in Edinburgh. Here his first work was Specimens of German Romance (4 vols.) A much more important matter was his friendship with Jeffrey and his connection with the Edinburgh Review, in which appeared, among others, his essays on Richter, Burns, Characteristics, and German Poetry. In 1828 Carlyle applied unsuccessfully for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, and the same year he went to Craigenputtock, a small property in Dumfriesshire belonging to Mrs. Carlyle, where they remained for several years, and where many of his best essays and Sartor Resartus were written, and where his correspondence with Goethe began. In 1831 he went to London to find a publisher for Sartor, but was unsuccessful, and it did not appear in book form until 1838, after having come out in Fraser's Magazine in 1833-1834. 1838 found him settled in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, his abode for the rest of his life. He immediately set to work on his French Revolution. Its originality, brilliance, and vividness took the world by storm, and his reputation as one of the foremost men of letters in the country was at once and finally established. In the same year he delivered 4 courses on German Literature, Periods of European Culture, Revolutions of Modern Europe, and Heroes and Hero-Worship, the page last of which was published as a book in 1841. Books now followed each other rapidly, Chartism had appeared in 1839, Past and Present came out in 1843, and Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell in 1845. In 1851 he began his largest, if not his greatest work, Frederick the Great, which occupied him from that year until 1865, and in connection with which he made 2 visits to Germany in 1852 and 1858. In 1865 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. Almost immediately afterwards a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of Mrs. C., and in the discovery, from her diary, of how greatly she had suffered, unknown to him, from the neglect and want of consideration which, owing to absorption in his work and other causes, he had perhaps unconsciously shown. Whatever his faults, of which the most was made in some quarters, there can be no doubt that C. and his wife were sincerely attached to each other, and that he deeply mourned her. In 1866 his Reminiscences (pub. 1881) were written. The Franco-German War of 1870-71 profoundly interested him, and evoked a plea for Germany. From this time his health began to give way more and more. In 1872 his right hand became paralysed. In 1874 he received the distinction of the Prussian Order of Merit, as the biographer of its founder, and in the same year, Mr. Disraeli offered him the choice of the Grand Cross of the Bath or a baronetcy and a pension, all of which he declined. The completion of his 80th year in 1875 was made the occasion of many tributes of respect and veneration, including a gold medal from some of his Scottish admirers. He d. on February 5, 1881. Burial in Westminster Abbey was offered, but he had left instructions that he should lie with his kindred. He bequeathed the property of Craigenputtock to the Univ. of Edin.John William Cousin, "Carlyle, Thoms," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 73-74. Web, Dec. 22, 2017. Youth and influences Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland and was educated at Annan Academy, Annan, Dumfries and Galloway. He was powerfully influenced by his family's (and his nation's) strong Calvinism. After attending Edinburgh University, Carlyle became a mathematics teacher, first in Annan and then in Kirkcaldy, where he became close friends with the mystic Edward Irving. In 1819-1821, Carlyle went back to Edinburgh University, where he suffered an intense crisis of faith and conversion that would provide the material for Sartor Resartus. He also began reading deeply in German literature. Carlyle's thinking was heavily influenced by German transcendentalism, in particular the work of Gottlieb Fichte. He established himself as an expert on German literature in a series of essays for Frazer's Magazine, and by translating German writers, notably Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Early writings His first major work, Sartor Resartus (1832) was intended to be a new kind of book: simultaneously factual and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. It ironically commented on its own formal structure, while forcing the reader to confront the problem of where 'truth' is to be found. The narrator finds contempt for all things in human society and life. He contemplates the "Everlasting No" of refusal, comes to the "Centre of Indifference," and eventually embraces the "Everlasting Yea." This voyage from denial to disengagement to volition would later be described as part of the existentialist awakening. Carlyle establishes that the bases for common belief and faith are empty, that men are locked into hollow forms and satiated by vacuous pleasures and certainties. His narrator rebels against the smugness of his age and the positive claims of authority. He eventually finds that rage cannot provide a meaning for life, that he cannot answer the eternal question by merely rejecting all answers. He eventually comes to see that the matters of faith to common life can be valid, if they are informed by the soul's passions and the individual affirmation. He seeks a new world where religion has a new form, where the essential truths once revolutionary and undeniable are again made new. Sartor Resartus was initially considered bizarre and incomprehensible, but had a limited success in the United States, where it was admired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, influencing the development of New England Transcendentalism. In 1834, Carlyle moved to London and began to move among celebrated company, thanks to the fame of Sartor Resartus. All these books were influential in their day, especially on writers such as Charles Dickens and John Ruskin. However, after the Revolutions of 1848 and political agitations in the United Kingdom, Carlyle published a collection of essays entitled "Latter-Day Pamphlets" (1850) in which he attacked democracy as an absurd social ideal, while equally condemning hereditary aristocratic leadership. The latter was deadening, the former nonsensical: as though truth could be discovered by toting up votes. Government should come from the ablest. But how we were to recognise the ablest, and to follow their lead, was something Carlyle could not clearly say. In later writings Carlyle sought to examine instances of heroic leadership in history. The "Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell" (1845) presented a positive image of Oliver Cromwell: someone who attempted to weld order from the conflicting forces of reform in his own day. Carlyle sought to make Cromwell's words live in their own terms by quoting him directly, and then commenting on the significance of these words in the troubled context of the time. Again this was intended to make the 'past' 'present' to his readers. The Everlasting Yea and No The Everlasting Yea is Carlyle's name for the spirit of faith in God in an express attitude of clear, resolute, steady, and uncompromising antagonism to the Everlasting No, and the principle that there is no such thing as faith in God except in such antagonism against the spirit opposed to God. The Everlasting No is Carlyle's name for the spirit of unbelief in God, especially as it manifested itself in his own, or rather Teufelsdröckh's, warfare against it; the spirit, which, as embodied in the Mephistopheles of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is for ever denying—''der stets verneint''—the reality of the divine in the thoughts, the character, and the life of humanity, and has a malicious pleasure in scoffing at everything high and noble as hollow and void. In Sartor Resartus, the narrator moves from the "Everlasting No" to the "Everlasting Yea," but only through "The Center of Indifference," which is a position not merely of agnosticism, but also of detachment. Only after reducing desires and certainty and aiming at a Buddha-like "indifference" can the narrator move toward an affirmation. In some ways, this is similar to the contemporary philosopher Soren Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. In regards to the abovementioned "antagonism," one might note that William Blake famously wrote that "without contraries is no progression," and Carlyle's progress from the everlasting nay to the everlasting yea was not to be found in the "Centre of Indifference" (as he called it) but in Natural Supernaturalism, a Transcendental philosophy of the divine within the everyday. Based on Goethe calling Christianity the "Worship of Sorrow," and "our highest religion, for the Son of Man," Carlyle adds, interpreting this, "there is no noble crown, well worn or even ill worn, but is a crown of thorns." The "Worship of Silence" is Carlyle's name for the sacred respect for restraint in speech till "thought has silently matured itself, …to hold one's tongue till some meaning lie behind to set it wagging," a doctrine which many misunderstand, almost wilfully, it would seem; silence being to him the very womb out of which all great things are born. Later work His last major work was the epic life of Frederick the Great (1858-1865). In this Carlyle tried to show how a heroic leader can forge a state, and help create a new moral culture for a nation. For Carlyle, Frederick epitomised the transition from the liberal Enlightenment ideals of the eighteenth century to a new modern culture of spiritual dynamism: embodied by Germany, its thought and its polity. The book is most famous for its vivid portrayal of Frederick's battles, in which Carlyle communicated his vision of almost overwhelming chaos mastered by leadership of genius. However, the effort involved in the writing of the book took its toll on Carlyle, who became increasingly depressed, and subject to various probably psychosomatic ailments. Its mixed reception also contributed to Carlyle's decreased literary output. Later writings were generally short essays, often indicating the hardening of Carlyle's political position. His notoriously racist essay, "An Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question""An Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question", Economics New Thought. Retrieved April 23, 2008. suggested that slavery should never have been abolished. It had kept order, and forced work from people who would otherwise have been lazy and feckless. This — and Carlyle's support for the repressive measures of Governor Edward Eyre in Jamaica — further alienated him from his old liberal allies. Eyre had been accused of brutal lynchings while suppressing a rebellion. Carlyle set up a committee to defend Eyre, while Mill organised for his prosecution. Private life Carlyle had a number of romantic attachments before he married. The most notable were with Margaret Gordon, a pupil of his friend Edward Irving. Even after he met Jane, he became enamoured of Kitty Kirkpatrick, the daughter of a British officer and an Indian princess. William Dalrymple, author of White Mughals, suggests that feelings were mutual, but social circumstances made the marriage impossible, as Carlyle was then poor. Both Margaret and Kitty have been suggested as the original of "Blumine," Teufelsdröch's beloved, in Sartor Resartus.Simon Heffer, Moral Desperado - A Life of Thomas Carlyle, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995, 48 Dr. Rizwana Rahim, January 6, 2006; "East Did Meet West - 3", Pakistan Link. Retrieved April 23, 2008. Carlyle married Jane Welsh in 1826, but the marriage was quite unhappy. The letters between Carlyle and his wife have been published, and they show that the couple had an affection for one another that was marred by frequent quarrels. Their personal relations is the cause of much speculation by biographers, but the couple was apparently celibate. Carlyle became increasingly alienated from his wife. Although she had been an invalid for some time, her death (1866) came unexpectedly and plunged him into despair, during which he wrote his highly self-critical Reminiscences of Jane Welsh Carlyle. This was published after his death by his biographer James Anthony Froude, who also made public his belief that the marriage was unconsummated. This frankness was unheard of in the usually respectful biographies of the period. Froude's views were attacked by Carlyle's family, especially his nephew, Alexander Carlyle. However, the biography in question was consistent with Carlyle's own conviction that the flaws of heroes should be openly discussed, without diminishing their achievements. Froude, who had been designated by Carlyle himself as his biographer-to-be, was acutely aware of this belief. After Jane Carlyle's death in 1866, Thomas Carlyle partly retired from active society. He was appointed rector of the University of Edinburgh. The Early Kings of Norway: Also an Essay on the Portraits of John Knox appeared in 1875. Upon Carlyle's death on February 5, 1881 in London, it was made possible for his remains to be interred in Westminster Abbey, but his wish to be buried beside his parents in Ecclefechan was respected. Writing C. exercised a very powerful influence upon the thought of his age, not only by his own writings and personality, but through the many men of distinction both in literature and active life whom he imbued with his doctrines; and perhaps no better proof of this exists than the fact that much that was new and original when first propounded by him has passed into the texture of the national ideas. His style is perhaps the most remarkable and individual in page 75our literature, intensely strong, vivid, and picturesque, but utterly unconventional, and often whimsical or explosive. He had in a high degree the poetic and imaginative faculty, and also irresistible humour, pungent sarcasm, insight, tenderness, and fierce indignation.Cousin, "Carlyle, Thomas," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 74-75. Web, Dec. 22, 2017. All the works of C. shed light on his personality, but Sartor Resartus especially may be regarded as autobiographical.Cousin, "Carlyle, Thomas," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 75. Web, Dec. 22, 2017. Philosophy Carlyle held that the universe was ultimately good and directed by a divine will that worked through the agency of heroes and leaders. In his Sartor Resartus, Carlyle challenged the basis of conventional faith and accepted pieties. He believed that religion required a new form where the essential truths, once revolutionary but grown ossified, were again made new. Anticipating New England transcendentalism, Carlyle argued that for faith to be valid, it must be informed by the soul's passions. For Carlyle, individualism and laissez-faire capitalism were undermining communal human and spiritual values. While recognizing political, economic, and social factors, he believed that these forces were essentially spiritual and needed to be directed by leaders with boldness and vision. His increasing hostility to modern egalitarian democracy would influence the development of socialism, while insistence upon the need for heroic leadership, paradoxically, contributed to the later emergence of fascism]. A late, notoriously racist essay suggesting that slavery should never have been abolished lent support to the American slave system and contributed to his break with liberal reformers such as John Stuart Mill. ''French Revolution'' Within the United Kingdom Carlyle's success was assured by the publication of his 2-volume work The French Revolution: A history in 1837. After the completed manuscript of the book was accidentally burned by the philosopher John Stuart Mill's maid, Carlyle had to begin again from scratch. The resulting second version was filled with a passionate intensity, hitherto unknown in historical writing. In a politically charged Europe, filled with fears and hopes of revolution, Carlyle's account of the motivations and urges that inspired the events in France seemed powerfully relevant. Carlyle's style of writing emphasised this, continually stressing the immediacy of the action—often using the present tense. For Carlyle, chaotic events demanded what he called 'heroes' to take control over the competing forces erupting within society. While not denying the importance of economic and practical explanations for events, he saw these forces as essentially 'spiritual' in character — the hopes and aspirations of people that took the form of ideas, and were often ossified into ideologies ('formulas' or 'Isms', as he called them). In Carlyle's view only dynamic individuals could master events and direct these spiritual energies effectively. As soon as ideological 'formulas' replaced heroic human action society became dehumanized. This dehumanization of society was a theme pursued in later books. In Past and Present (1843), Carlyle sounded a note of conservative scepticism that could later be seen in Matthew Arnold and John Ruskin: he compared the lives of the dissipated nineteenth-century man and a medieval abbot. For Carlyle the monastic community was unified by human and spiritual values, while modern culture deified impersonal economic forces and abstract theories of human 'rights' and natural 'laws'. Communal values were collapsing into isolated individualism and ruthless laissez-faire capitalism, justified by what he called the "dismal science" of economics. Heroes and hero worship These ideas were influential on the development of socialism, but aspects of Carlyle's thinking in his later years also helped to form fascism. Carlyle moved towards his later thinking during the 1840s, leading to a break with many old friends and allies such as Mill and, to a lesser extent, Emerson. His belief in the importance of heroic leadership found form in his book "Heroes and Hero Worship," in which he compared different types of heroes. For Carlyle the hero was somewhat similar to Aristotle's "Magnanimous" man — a person who flourished in the fullest sense. However, for Carlyle, unlike Aristotle, the world was filled with contradictions with which the hero had to deal. All heroes will be flawed. Their heroism lay in their creative energy in the face of these difficulties, not in their moral perfection. To sneer at such a person for their failings is the philosophy of those who seek comfort in the conventional. Carlyle called this 'valetism', from the expression 'no man is a hero to his valet'. Recognition Thomas Carlyle is notable both for his continuation of older traditions of the Tory satirists of the 18th century in England and for forging a new tradition of Victorian era criticism of progress. Sartor Resartus can be seen both as an extension of the chaotic, sceptical satires of Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne and as an annunciation of a new point of view on values. Finding the world hollow, Carlyle's misanthropist professor-narrator discovers a need for revolution of the spirit. In one sense, this resolution is in keeping with the Romantic era's belief in revolution, individualism, and passion, but in another sense it is a nihilistic and private solution to the problems of modern life that makes no gesture of outreach to a wider community. Later British critics, such as Matthew Arnold, would similarly denounce the mob and the naïve claims of progress, and others, such as John Ruskin, would reject the era's incessant move toward industrial production. However, few would follow Carlyle into a narrow and solitary resolution, and even those who would come to praise heroes would not be as remorseless for the weak. Carlyle is also important for helping to introduce German Romantic literature to Britain. Although Samuel Taylor Coleridge had also been a proponent of Friedrich Schiller, Carlyle's efforts on behalf of Schiller and Goethe would bear fruit. Carlyle also made a favorable impression on some slaveholders in the United States southern states. His conservatism and criticisms of capitalism were enthusiastically repeated by those anxious to defend slavery as an alternative to capitalism, such as George Fitzhugh. The reputation of Carlyle's early work remained high during the 19th century, but declined in the 20th. His reputation in Germany was always high, because of his promotion of German thought and his biography of Frederick the Great. Friedrich Nietzsche, whose ideas are comparable to Carlyle's in some respects, was dismissive of his moralizing, calling him an "insipid muddlehead" in Beyond Good and Evil, regarding him as a thinker who failed to free himself from the very petty-mindedness he professed to condemn. Carlyle's distaste for democracy and his belief in charismatic leadership was unsurprisingly appealing to Adolf Hitler, who was reading Carlyle's biography of Frederick during his last days in 1945. This association with fascism did Carlyle's reputation no good in the post-war years, but Sartor Resartus has recently been recognized once more as a unique masterpiece, anticipating many major philosophical and cultural developments, from Existentialism to Postmodernism. It has also been argued that his critique of ideological formulas in The French Revolution provides a good account of the ways in which revolutionary cultures turn into repressive dogmatisms. Essentially a Romantic thinker, Carlyle attempted to reconcile Romantic affirmations of feeling and freedom with respect for historical and political fact. Nevertheless, he was always more attracted to the idea of heroic struggle itself, than to any specific goal for which the struggle was being made. Publications Fiction *''Wotton Reinfred, A Posthumous Novel''. New York: Waverly, 1892. Non-fiction *''The Life of Friedrich Schiller. London: Printed for Taylor & Hessey, 1825; Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1833. *''German Romance (4 volumes), Edinburgh: William Tait; London: Charles Tait, 1827 ** (2 volumes), Boston: Munroe, 1841. *''Sartor Resartus. Boston: Munroe, 1836; London: Saunders & Otley, 1838. *The French Revolution: A History'' (3 volumes), London: Fraser, 1837; (2 volumes), Boston: Little & Brown, 1838. *''Critical and Miscellaneous Essays'' (4 volumes). Boston: Munroe, 1838; London: Fraser, 1839. **(1 volume), New York: D. Appleton, 1870.Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1870), Internet Archive. Web, July 18, 2013. *''Chartism. London: Fraser, 1839; Boston: Little & Brown, 1840. *On Heroes and Hero Worship and The Heroic in History. London: Fraser, 1841; New York: Appleton, 1841. *Past and Present. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843; Boston: Little & Brown, 1843. *Latter-Day Pamphlets'' (eight pamphlets bound together). London: Chapman & Hall, 1850; Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1850. *''The Life Of John Sterling. London: Chapman & Hall, 1851; Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1851. *Samuel Johnson. London: Chapman & Hall, 1853.Samuel Johnson (1853), Internet Archive. Web, July 18, 2013. *''Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question. London: Bosworth, 1853. *''Burns. London: Chapman & Hall, 1854.[Burns (1854), Internet Archive. Web, July 18, 2013. *History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, called Frederick the Great''' (6 volumes). London: Chapman & Hall, 1858-1865; New York: Harper, 1858-1866. *''Inaugural Address at Edinburgh, April 2nd, 1866''. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas/London: Chapman & Hall, 1866 ** enlarged as On the Choice of Books (includes letters by Carlyle). London: Hotten, 1869; Boston: Osgood, 1877. *''Shooting Niagara: and After?'' London: Chapman & Hall, 1867. *''The Early Kings of Norway: Also An Essay on the Portraits of John Knox''. London: Chapman & Hall, 1875; New York: Harper, 1875. *''Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle'' (edited by James Anthony Froude). (2 volumes), London: Longmans, Green, 1881; (1 volume), New York: Scribners, 1881. *''Reminiscences of my Irish Journey in 1849. London: Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882; New York: Harper, 1882. *''Last Words of Thomas Carlyle, on Trades-Unions, Promoterism and The Signs of the Times. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1882. *''Reminiscences'' (edited by Charles Eliot Norton, 2 volumes). London & New York: Macmillan, 1887. *''Last Words of Thomas Carlyle''. London: Longmans, Green, 1892; New York: Appleton, 1892. *''Carlyle's Unpublished Lectures: Lectures on the History of Literature or the Successive Periods of European Culture, Delivered in 1838 (edited by R.P. Karkaria). London & Bombay: Kurwen, Kane, 1892; '' ** also published as Lectures on the History of Literature, Delivered by Thomas Carlyle, April to July 1838 (edited by J. Reay Greene). London: Ellis & Elvey, 1892. *''Montaigne and Other Essays, Chiefly Biographical''. London: Gowans, 1897; Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1897. *''Historical Sketches of Notable Persons and Events in the Reigns of James I. and Charles I''. (edited by Alexander Carlyle). London: Chapman & Hall, 1898; New York: Scribners, 1898). Collected editions *''Collectanea. Thomas Carlyle, 1821-1855'' (edited by Samuel Arthur Jones). Canton, PA: Kirgate Press, 1903. *''The Works of Thomas Carlyle'', Centenary Edition (edited by H.D. Traill). (30 volumes), London: Chapman & Hall, 1896-1899; New York: Scribners, 1896-1901. Translated *''Elements of Geometry and Trigonometry; with Notes. Translated from the French of A.M. Legendre''. (translated with an introductory chapter by Carlyle, edited by David Brewster). Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1824 ** revised edition, edited by Charles Davis. New York: Ryan, 1828. *''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. A Novel. From the German of Goethe'' (3 volumes). Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd; London: Whittaker, 1824 ** revised edition. London: Fraser, 1839; Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1840. Edited *''Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches'' (3 volumes), London: Chapman & Hall, 1845-1846; (2 volumes), New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846 ** revised and enlarged, (3 volumes). London: Chapman & Hall, 1846 ** revised and enlarged again (4 volumes). London: Chapman & Hall, 1850). *Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (prepared for publication by Carlyle, edited by James Anthony Froude). (3 volumes), London: Longmans, Green, 1883; (2 volumes), New York: Scribners, 1883. *''New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle'' (annotated by Carlyle, edited by Alexander Carlyle, 2 volumes). London & New York: John Lane, 1903. Letters *''The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872'' (2 volumes). Boston: Osgood, 1883; London: Chatto & Windus, 1883) ** supplementary volume, Boston: Ticknor, 1886. *''Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle'' (edited by Charles Eliot Norton, 2 volumes). London & New York: Macmillan, 1886. *''Correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle'' (edited by Norton). London: Macmillan, 1887. *''Letters of Thomas Carlyle, 1826-1836'' (edited by Norton, 2 volumes). London & New York: Macmillan, 1888. *''Two Note Books of Thomas Carlyle from 23rd March 1822 to 16th May 1832'' (edited by Norton). New York: Grolier Club, 1898. *''Letters of Thomas Carlyle to His Youngest Sister'' (edited by Charles Townsend Copeland). Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899; London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. *''New Letters of Thomas Carlyle'' (edited by Alexander Carlyle, 2 volumes). London & New York: John Lane, 1904. *''The Love Letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh'' (edited by Alexander Carlyle, 2 volumes). London & New York: John Lane, 1909. *''Letters of Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill, John Sterling and Robert Browning'' (edited by Alexander Carlyle (London: Unwin, 1923; New York: Stokes, 1923). *''Letters of Thomas Carlyle to William Graham'' (edited by John Graham). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950. *T''homas Carlyle: Letters to His Wife'' (edited by Trudy Bliss). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953. *''The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle'' (edited by Joseph Slater). New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. *''The Letters of Thomas Carlyle to His Brother Alexander'' (edited by Edwin W. Marrs, Jr. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968. *''The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle'' (edited by Charles Richard Sanders, K. J. Fielding, Clyde de L. Ryals, and others), volumes 1- Durham: Duke University Press, 1970- . *''Thomas and Jane: Selected Letters From the Edinburgh University Library Collection'' (edited by Ian Campbell). Edinburgh: Friends of Edinburgh University Library, 1980. *''The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin'' (edited by George Alan Cate). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.Ian Campbell, Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881, Poetry Foundation, Web, Aug. 17, 2012. See also * List of British poets References *Aproberts, Ruth. The Ancient Dialect: Thomas Carlyle and Comparative Religions. University of California Press, 1988. ISBN 9780520061163 *Heffer, Simon. Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle. Trafalgar Square, 1996. ISBN 9780297815648 *Kaplan, Fred. Thomas Carlyle: A Biography. University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 9780520082007 Notes External links ;Poems *"The Sower's Song" in A Victorian Anthology * Selected Poetry of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) (3 poems) at Representative Poetry Online * Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881 at the Poetry Foundation. *Thomas Carlyle at PoemHunter (3 poems) *Thomas Carlyle at Poety Nook (63 poems) ;Books * ;Audio / video * Today, poem by Thomas Carlyle at YouTube ;About *Thomas Carlyle in the Encyclopædia Britannica *Thomas Carlyle at NNDB * Thomas Carlyle at Spartacus Educational. * Thomas Carlyle at the Victorian Web. * Thomas Carlyle: Biography Project Gutenberg text by John Nichol * This article uses text from the New World Encyclopedia ;Etc. *"London: Literary lodging that's pickled in aspic," The Telegraph Category:1795 births Category:1881 deaths Category:Rectors of the University of Edinburgh Category:Thomas Carlyle Category:Scottish essayists Category:Scottish mathematicians Category:Scottish philosophers Category:Scottish historians Category:Scottish literary critics Category:Scottish satirists Category:Scottish translators Category:Existentialists Category:People associated with Transcendentalism Category:Historians of the French Revolution Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Category:People from Dumfries and Galloway Category:National Portrait Gallery, London Category:Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Category:Romanticism Category:People of the Victorian era Category:19th-century philosophy Category:Defenders of slavery Category:People educated at Annan Academy Category:Writers and poets Category:English poets Category:19th-century poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:English essayists Category:English satirists Category:English historians